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College football coaches are weird dudes. From Les Miles eating grass to [REDACTED] faking a heart attack to get out of a contract when he realized the future of [REDACTED] football wasn’t as promising as it once was, you could write a book about the oddities of college coaches. Jim Harbaugh is no different when it comes to his theories on food. This might trump his previous take on the skim vs. whole milk debate.

You’d think in a time where everyone is hypersensitive about health and how to fuel world class athletes, someone like Harbaugh would be preaching the benefits of a low fat, high protein meat for his athletes. But then again, he’s Jim Harbaugh and nothing he does shocks us. Now that I think about it, I’d actually be more surprised if he was preaching the benefits of chicken. It’s the reason that he doesn’t like his players eating chicken that has me scratching my head.

In an interview with Bleacher Report’s Matt Hayes, former Michigan and current UCLAquarterback Wilton Speight recalled a conversation he had early in his Wolverines tenure in which Harbaugh told him not to eat chicken. When Speight asked why, Harbaugh replied, “because it’s a nervous bird.”

Speight added, “He thinks some type of sickness injected its way into the human population when people began eating white meats instead of beef and pork, and he believes it, 100 percent.”

That pretty much makes zero sense. I won’t get into the logistics about it, but I know what you’re thinking:

“But Mac, isn’t pork ‘the other white meat?'”

Ok, I’m gonna get into the logistics of it. According to a very scientific Google search I just did, the amount of myoglobin in animal muscles determines the color of meat. Pork is classified a red meat because it contains more myoglobin than chicken or fish. When fresh pork is cooked, it becomes lighter in color, but it is still a red meat.

So there you have it. Despite what Big Pork tried to tell you in the 80’s and 90’s, pork is in fact a red meat. But that doesn’t make Harbaugh any less crazy.

What in the fuck is a ‘nervous bird’ and what does it have to do with the nutrition it provides? Do you think deer are tough? If you spend two seconds on Google, you’ll see that venison is dubbed “The Ultimate Red Meat”, so there are already holes in Coach Harbaugh’s theory. I’ve never fought a deer but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they’re not a threat. Sure, a buck might accidentally get you with his rack (still makes no sense to me that bucks, not does have racks, giggity) when he’s running away from you as you flex on ’em. That’s just a risk you run when you’re into underground deer fighting. But if you’re asking me if I think I could beat up a deer, the answer is yes.

If you are what you eat, as Harbaugh leads you to believe, then I wonder if he thinks Skittles make you.. eh, I’ll let Whitty save that for his soccer blog.